


Uncertainty

by annamariestark



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 21:13:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20088856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annamariestark/pseuds/annamariestark
Summary: Night falls, day breaks, timeHas a funny kind of violence and I'mTryna keep in mindIt can't leave you the way it finds you- Dessa, "Good Grief"





	Uncertainty

After I left the coliseum with Inanna, I’ve been afraid. Afraid of hurting anyone else. I’ve lived a quiet life in the forest. Alone, the way I like it. But all this time I left my shackles on. Let them cut into me more. I deserve it. I deserve pain for the pain I caused. Time is a cruel mistress, and it reminds me every day what I did. But now… Now I don’t know what to do. All of a sudden I’m roped into this… this thing. Lucio is coming back. He killed the Heart of the Forest. He won’t stop there. He’d kill all of us, if he could. He’d make _me_ kill everyone.

So. We’re down South now. Looking for Lucio. Tamora is here with me. I’m glad she is but… I kind of wish she wasn’t, only because I don’t want her hurt. I keep asking her to leave and she won’t. It’s been hard. Morga is harsh. A different kind than Lucio was, but… still. But I guess she likes us because she hasn’t left yet. But she wants me to fight. How can I do that? I don’t want to kill anyone. I don’t know if I can stop Lucio. I don’t know if I can protect Tamora. What if we lose? What if she is hurt more? What if… what if she dies? Bruised, battered, and broken at my feet, blood running freely from wounds that I can’t heal?

I’ve had enough of fighting. Of killing. I still remember being in the coliseum. I remember the cheers of the crowd. I remember Lucio shouting at me. I was his executioner, and I… I was good at it. No one who came into the ring with me left it alive. Sometimes they died quickly, if they were older, weaker. But Lucio… he preferred for me to drag it out. Really make the people hurt. So that’s what I did. I left the arena every day covered in blood. Some of it was my own, but most of it wasn’t. I still can feel it on my skin. Warm, sticky, smelling of copper. It felt like I was spattered with the lost hope and dreams of the people I’d killed. Hope for a life. Happiness. Now I can’t have either, because of what I did to them. I don’t deserve it. I don’t deserve love.

Tamora hasn’t left yet. I told her, about the coliseum. About the blood. The fights. About Inanna, and about breaking out. And she's still stayed with me.

I… I like her. I really like her. I find myself living in the moment for her touches. For the little talks we share. It’s all that’s keeping me calm. She gives me space when I need it. She waits for me, when I can’t form the words that I want to say. I thought she liked me, and I guess she does, because… she kissed me. The entire world disappeared when she did. It was just me and her and that’s all that mattered. I was ready to run away again. But now I’m staying with her, for good. My shackles are gone... they fell off when she kissed me. When… I kissed her back. I can breathe again, if just for now. If someone as good as her likes me, maybe there’s still some good in me, after all.

...Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> Good Grief lyrics by Dessa, property of Doomtree Records.


End file.
